"Fimbulwinter" is an interesting and diverse work, it is from those albums that are, as the saying runs, listened in one breath. Not every album has such a characteristic, by the way. Although Satanic Warmaster rush to a savage attack from the very first song, "Fimbulwinter's Spell", some of the songs on this album sound epic (take "Funeral Wolves"), or even symphonic ("When Thunders Hail"). However, the measure is observed in everything: the repeatedly arising pomposity of the sound (there is nothing to be done, the keyboards are often used on the album...) does not kill the anger of the riffs. This magniloquence gets to know the anger from a completely different angle, but does not bring it to nothing. Nevertheless, anger and rage definitely appear in their pure form in the last song "Winter's Hunger" ("last" among the metal compositions). It turned out almost symbolically.
The album's sound is almost polished. Well, not as if it was recorded at Necromorbus Studio, but just in comparison with the previous works of Satanic Warmaster – there is no "basement rawness" here, as, for example, on "Nachzehrer". By no means implying a comparison of music, it can be said that by releasing "Fimbulwinter", Satanic Warmaster made the same revolution in their own universe as when Osculum Infame released their "Dor-nu-Fauglith" in 1997. Such "coups" are fraught with a stir in the army of fans, but nevertheless, "Fimbulwinter" is still an underground release.
The third song "Korppi" is a cover of Vornat, one of the pioneers of the Finnish black metal scene. Well, Satanic Warmaster injected new life into this song, recorded back in 1994: "Korppi" sounds quite in the spirit of the album. However, compared to the rest of the material on the album, this song seems, of course, more primitive. The matter is, this primitiveness is well disguised by the arrangement. If you first listen to the original and then to the cover, you'll find that the first version stands in stark contrast to the second one. The other's gaze can see in the piece of work something that its creator might not even have guessed. The Vornat cover is just such a case. This is not "Transilvanian Hunger" that is played by other bands quite in the same way as Darkthrone (more often than not). A lot of attention is given to "Korppi" because it reveals the essence of the album: pristine rawness sounds today like this. Satanic Warmaster may not be sophisticated or tricked out, but they can be modern. Well, "he", not "they", it's a one man band still and all.
The best song on the album – meaning "the most interesting" – is perhaps the sixth "Nuin-Gaer-Faun". Basically slow and "groovy", among all the compositions it is most sustained in the vein of Finnish black metal. Yes, to be sure, "Fimbulwinter" has many influences from both the Norwegian and Swedish black metal schools. This song with a mysterious name becomes unforgettable not least because of a very impressive and heartfelt solo in the slow part: melancholic funeral music envelops the listener and carries him to another world, the crazy world of dreams and hallucinations. He/she will have to go through the classic black metal elements, such as a mid-tempo theme in a syncopated manner and fast blastbeat attack, before in the final he/she falls again under the spell of a piercing tremolo riff.
In general, tremolo is one of the strengths of both Satanic Warmaster and "Fimbulwinter". Another tremolo solo, which one might recommend, is contained in the fifth song "Dragon's Egg", it bores your brain after an acoustic guitar fingerpicking. This solo may or may not be pleasant, but one cannot but admit that this is the purest black metal passage. It should be noted that there are extremely few episodes on "Fimbulwinter" that do not fall under the black metal category. For example, regarding heavy metal, one can confidently say only in one case – in the second song "Funeral Wolves", starting at 3:16.
The vocals on "Fimbulwinter" also produce a continuous onslaught. The vocal part often echoes the riffs, enhancing their attack, but basically leads its own line of rage and madness. The vocals cease to follow the black metal canons only in the eighth song "Silent Call of Moon's Temples", where there are short speeches, completely in the spirit of Mortiis, to the accompaniment of ambient music, also completely in the vein of Mortiis. However, Mortiis is too closely related to black metal, so this, perhaps, is no exception. As for the composition itself, well, this is not original at all, but very atmospheric.
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